Dr. Mariangela Lisanti, 30, grew up -literally- in this reporter’s backyard, on the next block. Her backyard was right there, abutting ours a few blocks from Pelham Parkway. I haven’t spoken to her in two decades since elementary school, but upon looking her up, turns out this Pelham Gardens native and first generation Italian-American won the Intel Science Talent search in 2001, the most prestigious of all science awards for high school students, and went on to study physics at Harvard and Stanford, winning countless awards and being considered on of the top rising minds in theoretical physics in the world.

The world, folks.

She is now an assistant professor at Princeton University in New Jersey, not all that far from the hometown, working on..particles and…well….we’ll let her explain it.

Mariangela Lisanti, one of the many bona fide geniuses that have come out of our borough!